Promises From Patent Holders
Some software companies who hold significant patent portfolios have made non-aggression pledges to the free software community. These have varied in scope and have received a variety of responses. IBM, Sun, and Nokia are three examples. These have been described by Richard Stallman as "significant", "not really anything", and "next to nothing", respectively.
Microsoft has pledged not to assert any claims against open source developers which CEO Steve Ballmer called "an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies." This pledge has been accepted with some skepticism.
Read more about this topic: Software Patents And Free Software
Famous quotes containing the words promises, patent and/or holders:
“One promises much, to avoid giving little.”
—Luc, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747)
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Their holders have always seemed to me like a woman who should undertake at a state fair to run a sewing machine, under pretense of advertising it, while she had never spent an hour in learning its use.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)